Lost and Found

He shook his head.

“There must have been.” She remembered having this conversation once before in their marriage and him denying it. “Two years ago. I asked you then…you said no. But you were, weren’t you?”

He turned his head away.

“Derek. That was before we’d even gotten into the whole pregnancy mess. Did you even cheat before then?” Her voice rose to a squeak.

“No.”

“You did.” She leaned forward, determined to hear the truth. She put a hand on his chest and gave him a shove. “Tell me. Who was it that time?”

“I can’t.”

“What?” She grabbed his shirt in her fist and yanked. “What? Tell me! Tell me now!”

“No! Jesus, Krissa, let it go, it was a long time ago and she’s dead, for God’s sake!”

Krissa released her grip on his shirt and sat back. “She’s…dead?”

Her mind immediately co

She covered her mouth with her hands, staring at him. “Oh my God, Derek. Did you have an affair with Lauren?”

He stared back at her. “Why would you think that?” But his gaze shifted away.

“It was Lauren. I can’t believe you.” She moved away from him, shaking her head. Her breath stuck in her throat. “Oh, dear God. It was you.”

He said nothing, stood and walked to the doors overlooking the dark ocean, his back to her.

Not only had he betrayed her, he’d betrayed his best friend.

“Is that why Nate left?”

He nodded, shoulders hunched.

“I can’t believe you told him.”

“I didn’t mean to. I never meant for him to know. Lauren wanted to leave him, wanted me to leave you, but she was killed in that car accident…so I never would have told Nate.”

“Were you going to leave me?” she whispered, pain crawling over her body, cutting her open. She pressed her fingertips to her mouth.

He turned. “I don’t know.” Then, “No. I love you, Krissa. I didn’t want to leave you. She was just lonely and pissed off at Nate for leaving her alone for so long.”

“Dear sweet God.”

Her mind reeled again. Could she take any more of this? The shock and pain of these confessions sapped her strength and crippled her ability to function.

“How could you do that to him?” she whispered through her fingers, not sure if he could even hear her, but then, she didn’t expect an answer. “How could I have loved you?”

“Krissa. God, Krissa.” His voice was thick and across the room she saw the glimmer of tears on his face from the moonlight shining in the glass doors. “If it wasn’t for this whole obsession with having a baby, none of this would have happened.”

She let his words sink into her. And then…something broke inside her. Something snapped, emotion welled up inside her fierce and hot, her control ripped away. She hated conflict, hated fighting. She’d accepted the blame for everything that had gone wrong for years. For her whole life, in fact.

She was done with that. She wasn’t going to take the blame any more.

“Shut up.”

He stared back at her. She, too, rose to her feet and wrapped her arms around her waist.

“This is not my fault,” she spat at him. “You cheated on me with Lauren before any of that even started. You probably cheated before that and more times than I even know. I don’t care. You can tell me it was all my fault—that I made you feel less of a man.” Her tone scathed and she narrowed her eyes at him. “But you only felt the man you really are—a weak man, trying to blame someone else for your problems. For your sins. I never blamed you. I don’t know why you felt like that. I blamed myself.” She took a breath.

“I knew we weren’t totally together on wanting a baby. I know I wanted it more than you did. And I’m sorry more than you can know that I pushed you so hard for that.” She stopped, tears flowing now. She wiped her hands across her cheeks. “I can’t believe I loved you and lived with you all these years and didn’t even know you.”

“Krissa…”

“No.” She choked on a sob, sucked in a shaky breath. “I’m done. I hate you for judging me the way you did. I just wish I’d had the guts to tell you that sooner. I tried so hard to do what you wanted. To be what you wanted. And I hate you for making me feel like I never could.”

She heard a low rough sound that might have been a sob from Derek, and even though it hurt her, she kept going. “We’re done. I’m leaving.”

“No.”

“You can’t think we can still have a life together after all this?”

He slowly moved his head from side to side, face wet. “No,” he choked out. “I know. I knew it earlier. When Nate left and you came undone.”

“And that made it okay to go cheat on me with someone else?”

“No. It wasn’t okay. I’m just telling you why. I’m telling you how I felt. Knowing you loved someone else. Terrified that our marriage was over. That I’d pushed you into someone else’s arms because of my own guilt and stupidity. I’m hurting, too, Krissa. Just so you know.”

She sniffled in a quivery breath through her nose, then out, mouth pressed together to keep her lips from trembling. Her hands came together over her mouth and nose in an inverted V as she stared at him.

“I know. And I loved you, Derek. But—God help me—I want you to hurt, too.”

Only a horrible person would want that. Then she straightened her shoulders. She was not a horrible person. She was human. She was wounded, in pain, betrayed and heartbroken. Some day she might forgive Derek. But right now she’d admit she wanted him to hurt as much as she did.

Chapter Thirty

She went to stay with Cameron. Her parents had more room in their huge mansion where she could probably stay and not even see them for an entire week, but she couldn’t go there. Couldn’t bear to feel her mother’s censure and blame for her failed marriage. She already knew her mother had been horrified at catching her and Nate together that day, had been convinced Krissa was cheating on her husband.

And Krissa had a lump of guilt deep inside her that she had been cheating on her husband.

Cameron’s house was noisy and crazy with two toddlers and a baby, although Cameron had just gone back to work. For two hours every morning, a whirlwind of frantic activity took place when Cam and Eric got the kids up, got them dressed, made breakfast, packed bags and exploded out the door.

“I’m exhausted before I even get to work,” Cam complained to Krissa one morning as she ran to change. They’d been on their way out the door when somehow one of the boys had tripped and fallen in the driveway. His nose started bleeding and he’d been crying so Cameron had scooped him up to comfort him and he’d bled all over her silk blouse.

Krissa took Benjamin to the bathroom to clean him up and get the bleeding stopped while Eric loaded Alex and Emma into the van. The least she could do while she stayed there was help. She tried to do what she could.

When everyone had left for the day and the house was blissfully quiet, she got into a routine of cleaning up the dishes Cam always left in the sink and on the counter, knowing how much it would mean to Cam to come home and not have to worry about that at the end of the day. She threw in loads of laundry, started di

She worked. She’d retrieved her computer and her files and books from the house, set up a cramped tiny office in a storage room above Cam’s garage where she slept on a futon. She scoured the newspaper looking for cheap apartments. She had money coming in, but damn, rent was expensive. She’d need to work harder on expanding her business.

So she threw her heartbroken self into approaching new clients, spent all her time working, e-mailing and researching when she wasn’t doing training. She needed to stay busy to keep from going crazy thinking about the mess her life was in and how much she missed Nate.